Chapter XV: Part IV (3)

The extent to which capital might thus be invested is boundless; since if the breeder did not possess as much land as would feed the number of sheep that he might wish to keep, he would only have to send his flocks beyond the limits of colonization, and retire with them as the tide of population approached. His hurdles, and the rude huts or tents of his shepherds, might always be removed with very little difficulty and expense; and if his and his neighbours' flocks should happen to come into contact, such is the immensity of the wilderness which would lie before him, that he might exclaim in the language of Abram to Lot: "Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herds-men; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before us? Separate thyself I pray thee from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." Such, should any of these disputes occur, might always be their amicable termination. There is, and will be for ages to come, whatever may be the extent of emigration, more land than can possibly be required. The speculation, therefore, of growing wool can meet with no checks from the want of pasturage in the colony, and it is equally improbable that it can be impeded by the want of a market in this country. It is well known that the Saxon wool cannot be sold under the present prices without loss to the growers. The severity of the climate of Saxony, renders it indispensable for the sheep-holders to take a variety of precautions which are not only useless in this colony, but would even prove highly detrimental to the constitution of this valuable animal. In the former country, the flocks are kept almost invariably in sheds of a very costly construction both by day and night, and are fed almost wholly upon hay; in the latter, they are always better when kept in the open air and fed on the spontaneous herbage of the forest. The mildness of the seasons, therefore, spares the colonists two immense sources of expence, and will without doubt in the end, enable them to undersell and ruin the Saxon wool growers; since the only point of superiority these latter can pretend to is their greater contiguity to the market, and this, in consequence of the extreme value of the commodity, is of too trifling import to demand consideration. The freight of wool from the colony, has already been reduced to three pence per pound, which is very little more than is paid for the transport of wool from Saxony; and all the other expences, with the exception of insurance, as brokerage, store-room, etc. are precisely the same. Upon these grounds, therefore, I am contented to rest the support of my assertion, that the world does not at present contain so advantageous, and I might also add, so extensive an opening for the investment of capital as the one in question.

With reference to the commercial prospects presented by this colony, they are certainly much more limited, but still of very considerable scope. The extraordinary fluctuations which are incessantly taking place in the prices of all sorts of merchandize, are evidently capable of being turned to great account by a skilful and cool calculator. Any person of this character possessed of sufficient capital to enable him to buy goods when the market should happen to be in a state of depression, and to keep them in his store till the glut should pass by, could not fail to realize a rapid fortune. The only event that could prevent his success, would be an imprudent avidity. If he should be once tempted to go out of his depth, so that he would be compelled to sell whether at gain or loss, in order to make good his payments, he would most probably sink never more to rise. But if he would never speculate beyond the compass of his actual means, he might easily clear fifty per cent. per annum on the amount of his trading capital.

Were I asked to particularize any avenue of industry not strictly included in any of the foregoing general classes, in which persons inclined to emigrate to this colony, might embark with a fair chance of success, I should say that any one who had the means of taking out a steam engine of six or eight-horse-power with the requisite machinery for sawing boards, would make it answer his purposes very well; that a timber merchant also, possessing a capital of three or four thousand pounds, might employ his funds very advantageously by establishing a timber yard; and that a skilful brewer who could command five thousand pounds and upwards, would succeed either at Sydney or Hobart Town. It would be necessary, however, that he should understand the process of making malt, since there are no regular maltsters yet in the colony, and that he should also grow his own hops.* Until, therefore, he had established a hop plantation sufficient for his concern it would be requisite that he should make arrangements to be supplied with hops from this country. There are already several breweries in New South Wales, but the beer which is made in them is so bad, that many thousand pounds worth of porter and ale imported from this country, is annually consumed in these settlements. This is in some measure occasioned by the inferiority of the barley grown at Port Jackson; but more, I am inclined to believe, by the want of skill in the brewers. If the indifferent quality of the beer, however, be attributable to the badness of the barley, this impediment to success would be removed by emigrating to Van Diemen's Land; since the barley raised in both the settlements in this island is equal to the best produced in this country. I should also say, that the skilful dairyman who could take out with him a capital of from one to two thousand pounds, would do well in any of these settlements, but more particularly in New South Wales. Butter, as it has been already remarked, is still as high as 2s. 6d. per pound, notwithstanding the immense increase which has taken place in the black cattle. The extreme dearness of this article arises principally from the natural grasses not being sufficiently nutritive to keep milch cattle in good heart, and from the colonists not having yet got into the proper method of providing artificial food. Any one, therefore, who would introduce the dairy system practised in this country, could hardly fail of finding his account in it.

[* The hop thrives very well at Port Jackson: there are several flourishing plantations owned by the brewers. This plant has not, I believe, yet been introduced into the southern settlements; but as they bear a much greater affinity to this country in point of climate than Port Jackson, no doubt can be entertained that it might at least be cultivated there with equal certainty of success.]

These various advantages which this colony and its dependencies offer for emigration, have many points of superiority over any to which the United States of America can lay claim; if we even admit the truth of all that the most enthusiastic admirers of that country have written, respecting its flourishing condition. Mr. Birbeck*, whose "Letters," if not "Notes," contain strong marks of an exaggerated anticipation of their resources and capabilities, has not, though evidently under the influence of feelings quite incompatible with a correct and disinterested judgment, ventured to rate his imaginary maximum of the profit to be derived from farming in the Illinois, (which appears to be the principal magnet of attraction possessed by the United States,) so high as I have proved by a calculation, to which I defy any one to attach the character of hyperbolical, that the investment of capital in the growth of fine wool in this colony will infallibly produce. This too, although certainly the most inviting and extensive channel of enterprize which it contains, is not its only ground of preference: it has many temptations besides for emigration, of which the United States are wholly destitute: among these the following are perhaps the most considerable.

[* See Mr. Cobbett's Letter to Mr. Birbeck on his "Letters from the Illinois."]

First, Any person of respectability upon emigrating to this colony, is given as much land as would cost him four hundred pounds in the United States.

Secondly, He is allowed as many servants as he may require; and the wages which he is bound to pay them, are not one third the amount of the price of labour in America.

Thirdly, He, his family and servants, are victualled at the expence of the government for six months.

These are three considerations of great importance to the emigrant, and quite peculiar to this colony: added to which the value of the produce of this gratuitous land and labour is three times as great as in the Illinois, as will be seen by a comparison of the prices of produce there as given by Messrs. Birbeck and Fearon, and the prices of similar produce as stated in the first part of this work. It is true that there is not the same unlimited market as in America; but it must be evident, that, if the price of labour were even equal, the colonist who could dispose of one third of his crops, would be in a better condition than if he were established in the Illinois, and could find vent for the whole. The market, however, has never been circumscribed to this degree in periods of the greatest abundance; and the immense arrivals of convicts, that have been daily taking place for the last three years, have increased the consumptive powers of the colony so considerably, that there has at most been but a very trifling surplus in the barns of the farmers at the close of the year. On the other hand, all articles of foreign growth and manufacture are in general much cheaper than in the Illinois, and the other remote parts of the American Union, provided the purchaser has ready money, and is not under the necessity of having recourse to secondary agents for goods on long credit.

Here, then, are many powerful reasons why persons bent on emigration should prefer this colony to America. The only point is whether the latter can throw any weightier arguments into the opposite _scale_. What may be urged on the other side of the question, may, I apprehend, be comprised under these two heads: first, the greater contiguity of the United States to this country, and the consequent ease and cheapness with which emigration thither may be effected; and, secondly, the superiority of their government.

The first of these points merits very little consideration, except in the instance of those who have not the means of choosing between the two countries. If a person only possess the power of removing to that which is the more contiguous, eligibility is out of the question: he is no longer a free agent. But the difference in the cost of emigrating is far from being so considerable as might be imagined on a mere view of their comparative distances from this country. I understand that a gentleman of great experience and respectability in the commercial world, has presented a calculation to the committee of the House of Commons, which is now occupied with an inquiry into the state of this colony, from which it appears that a family, consisting of a man, his wife and two children, with five tons for their accommodation and for the reception of their baggage, might emigrate to the colony for one hundred pounds, inclusive of every contingent expense, provided a sufficient number of families could be collected to freight a ship. The same gentleman calculates that a single man might be taken out thither for thirty pounds.* The difference, therefore, in the mere cost of emigrating to the two places is so trifling, that the superior locality of the one cannot be admitted as any sort of set off against the superior advantages of the other. With respect, however, to the last plea, that has been adduced in favour of emigration to the United States, the superiority which they possess in a free government, it must be admitted, that this is a decisive ground of preference, and a blessing to which the greatest pecuniary advantages cannot be considered a sufficient counterpoise. And if it be imagined that the present arbitrary system of government is not drawing to a conclusion; if it be apprehended that it has not yet reached its climax of oppression and iniquity, and that it will be enforced until all who are within the sphere of its influence are reduced to a state of moral degradation and infamy, and the colony becomes one vast stye of abomination and depravity; the emigrant will do well to discard from his mind every mercenary consideration, and to turn away with disgust from all prospects of gain; so long as they are only to be realized by entering into so contagious and demoralizing an association. But if he believe that the hour is at hand when the present system is to be abolished; when oppression is to be hurled from the car in which it has driven triumphantly over prostrate justice, virtue, and religion; and when the dominion of right and morality is to be asserted and established; then I have no hesitation in recommending him to give a preference to this colony. In the agonies of approaching dissolution, the efforts of tyranny will be feeble and impotent. Moral corruption, though the inevitable result of a voluntary submission to the will, is not the consequence of an indignant and impatient sufferance of its rule for a season; and the chance of personal injury would be still more precarious and uncertain. Under the most arbitrary governments the vengeance of the despot has seldom been known to extend beyond the circle of his court; his victims have been among the ambitious candidates for power and distinction. The retired pursuits of unobtrusive industry have proved a sanctuary, which has remained inviolate in all ages.

[* See a calculation in the Appendix made by an eminent merchant in the city; from which it appears that a single man, on the ration allowed sailors on board of a king's ship, might be conveyed to the colony at a still cheaper rate.]

"The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, To men remote from pow'r but rarely known, Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own."